Lewis's Woodpecker

Melanerpes lewis

Order: Piciformes

Family: Picidae (Woodpeckers)

Melanerpes lewis
Order: Piciformes
Family: Picidae (Woodpeckers)

This extraordinary bird, our only pink and green woodpecker, is declining grievously; the Breeding Bird Survey indicates its continental population has declined by about 82 percent between 1966 and 2015. It’s on the 2016 State of North America’s Birds’ Watch List, which includes bird species that are most at risk of extinction without significant conservation actions to reverse declines and reduce threats.

Lewis’s woodpeckers seldom peck into trees for food. They pick up insects on the surface of the bark or sally out from a perch to catch insects in mid-air. For some reason, some individual Lewis’s Woodpeckers wander widely. Most of my photos were taken of a bird that appeared in northern Wisconsin in May 2017.